


Dancing with Rainbows

by LdyKirin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, One-sided Aang/Katara (Avatar), Pre-Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 22:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18040286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LdyKirin/pseuds/LdyKirin
Summary: In which Aang contemplates the balance between elements and there is quite a bit of staring.





	Dancing with Rainbows

**Author's Note:**

> This is an import from LJ and was originally written during the hiatus between Book 2: Earth and Book 3: Fire.

Drops of water glittered in the sunlight as Katara spun, twirling water around her the way dancers twirled ribbons. In a meeting of Yin and Yang, the bright summer sun refracted as it touched her element until it seemed as if she danced inside a rainbow. 

Aang couldn’t look away. There was something so natural and pure in the way she flowed with her element, until she was water given flesh, that he had to memorize this moment. He was a monk and the Avatar and he wasn’t allowed to hold on to her but he was allowed this at least, wasn’t he? And wasn’t the Avatar all about balance and celebrating the unity of the elements? And that was what this moment was about, as sun and water mixed to become an ethereal partner in her dance. He savored it the way he savored the sight of mist shrouded mountains, as a reminder that balance between the elements could exist and his task was not as hopeless as it sometimes seemed. 

_The greatest illusion in this world is the illusion of separation._ How could the four elements be anything but parts of a greater whole when together they could form a moment so beautiful it stole his breath away. 

As he struggled to breathe, Aang remembered that that was what he was supposed to be doing, controlling his breath in order to control his inner flame. Wildly he glanced over at his teacher, wondering why the prince wasn’t making him dodge fireballs for his inattention. Zuko had stopped ranting at his easily distracted pupil and instead attacked him ever time Aang’s attention wavered. He secretly wondered if the firebender had talked to Toph about teaching, because he suddenly seemed to share her theory that the greater the potential for bodily harm the better the lessons stuck. 

While Aang was relieved Zuko wasn’t breathing fire at him for starting at Katara when he should be practicing, he didn’t understand how the prince had missed his distraction. Until he glimpsed the entranced look on the older boy’s face. Zuko was staring too, and Aang had never seen the prince with such an unguarded expression. There was an intense light in Zuko’s eyes that shook Aang to his core and hinted at things the young monk was only just beginning to understand. As she lifted her face, Katara’s eyes met Zuko’s, and Aang saw that, like the moon, she reflected that light back. 

Aang had to look away. Even though he was the Avatar, even though he could not hold her, he knew that it would be a long time before he could celebrate the unity of these two elements.


End file.
